Having manual transmission won’t shift rates down, says columnist

It seems like a good question, given so few people drive stick shift and fewer cars offer manual transmission: Will owning a car with a manual transmission qualify as having an "anti-theft" device for auto insurance purposes?

“Nice try,” replied Karin Price Mueller, the money columnist for NJ.com, in her personal finance column for the northern New Jersey newspaper’s website.

But that’s not what a reader calling himself “Stick shift” wrote to Ms. Mueller: “I ask because I've read some stories about carjackers and car thieves who were subverted by attempting to steal cars with manual transmissions because they couldn't drive stick.”

Only 2% to 3.5% of all new vehicles sold today have a stick shift, and a study by U.S. News and World Report reported that only 18% of drivers know how to operate a manual transmission, Ms. Mueller wrote in her column this month.

"The type of a transmission a vehicle comes with is part of the equation (for car insurance), but a manual transmission is not considered an anti-theft device," Ms. Mueller wrote in her reply. "Despite the idea that they may be harder to drive and thus less appealing to steal, a manual transmission is not among the recognized list of anti-theft devices."